View source for Earthly Remains (Mamoru Chiba)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2024/07/11
|Location=The Dark Kingdom
|Synopsis= ==<< ''CONTENT WARNING'' >>==: Implied torture, implied grievous injury.

Mamoru's perspective on what, exactly, is happening now that he's been reclaimed by the Dark Kingdom.
|Cast of Characters=38,213
|Tinyplot=Dark Kingdom Finale
}}
Mamoru is a person who doesn't know what time it is, what day it is. He's a person, and he's grown to hate saltwater almost as much as he hates fire. He's not sure whether or not he's losing his mind, but no one can take his sense of self again, especially not Beryl. He knows who he is. The fingertips that touch the floor, stone that was once part of a real place, remind him even when the fingertips aren't there.

He's not sure which is worse - the parts where she tears him to shreds only to let him use up his power healing himself, or the parts where she's almost sweet, almost kind. Are they worse, those parts? Where he's all better and only exhausted, and she touches his face and and speaks softly, telling him to remember what happened before, how he can save all the people this time just by conceding, just by submitting to her, giving her his power, his love...?

It's worse in different ways. There are more people to resist her this time, so many more, and they might die stopping her, but they would have signed up knowing it was a possibility. She would be stopped. His world wouldn't burn again. But the physical touch he's too exhausted to ward off or protest is a shudderingly vile thing for all its gentleness.

"Fuck off," he sighs out, knowing his rest is over the second the words leave his mouth and yet saying them anyway.

She doesn't disappoint, her long fingernails digging into his face, piercing the delicate new skin even as her other hand lifts the knife.

He's too tired to waste his energy on screaming anymore: he'll need every last drop of it to put himself back together again. And again. And again.

He just needs to hold out long enough.